


The Silver Branch

by damnslippyplanet



Series: Fluff and Nonsense N'at [2]
Category: Hannibal (TV)
Genre: Feelings, M/M, Pie, Utter Lack of Chill
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-03-01
Updated: 2017-03-01
Packaged: 2018-09-27 18:34:33
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 951
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10038716
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/damnslippyplanet/pseuds/damnslippyplanet
Summary: Hannibal bakes a pie for Mardi Gras.  There is some discussion and some feelings, and zero plot.(A wee little ficlet for the Hannigram Mardi Gras event.)





	

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Jhonni](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Jhonni/gifts).



> 1) This would usually have been another chapter of the main ficlet compilation given the length, but I wanted to be able to add it to the Tumblr collection, so here we are.
> 
> 2) The title is borrowed with thanks from the Margaret Atwood poem ["Variation on the Word Sleep"](https://www.poets.org/poetsorg/poem/variation-word-sleep), a beautiful and melancholy poem about someone who is like I AM VERY CHILL ABOUT THIS RELATIONSHIP, SUPER CHILL, I JUST, LIKE, WANT TO STARE AT YOU ALL THE TIME WHILE YOU SLEEP AND ALSO I AM JEALOUS OF THE AIR THAT NOURISHES YOUR LUNGS WHAT IF YOU JUST BREATHED ME INSTEAD, I COULD BE AN ATMOSPHERE, WE COULD BE A PLANET, THIS IS FINE, EVERYTHING IS FINE. It seemed appropriate.
> 
> 3) This was scribbled over the course of a couple of hours to meet the deadline and so is particularly rough around the edges and unedited, even for my usual slapdash work - apologies for typos/inconsistencies/etc.

Hannibal postponed his own first bite of the pie to watch Will savor his. Watching closely, he was fairly certain he could tell when the first hint of the bourbon broke over Will’s palate. He waited for the faint twitch of a smile, then turned to his own plate.

They ate a few bites in companionable silence before Will spoke.

“You used the good stuff. You know it’s insane to waste that on baking, right?”

Hannibal gave that the half-second’s consideration that was all it deserved before responding: “If you can taste the difference, then it wasn’t wasted.” Will rolled his eyes in decidedly rude fashion and popped another forkful into his mouth. He chewed thoughtfully for a moment with a faraway look in his eyes.

Hannibal bit back the astringent taste of jealousy long enough to ask, “Where have you gone, Will?”

A soft, noncommittal hum and another bite of pie passed before Will refocused and answered him. “Ancient history. I was thinking about this little café back in New Orleans. They stayed open late and I’d stop there sometimes after my shift. Their pecan pie was the best I’d ever had, at the time. You’d have hated it. The whipped cream came from a can.”

His smile was bright and nearly malicious as he punctuated that with another bite, leaving Hannibal to shudder near-imperceptibly at the thought of sprayed-on whipped cream, and at the glimpse of Will’s teeth closing around his fork.

“I didn’t buy any canned whipped cream. I could whip some fresh, if you’d like it with the leftovers tomorrow.”

Will surveyed the remains of the dinner Hannibal had so carefully put together, as Mardi-Gras-appropriate a menu as could be cobbled together from the shops of Havana. He looked at the spread a bit askance, as if just now realizing how many leftovers there would be.

“Traditionally, there aren’t supposed to be leftovers. The whole excuse for pigging out tonight should be to deny ourselves everything fun afterwards.”

Hannibal’s mind recoiled from the notion of denying himself or Will, for Lent or any other reason. It was tempting, still, to ply Will with anything Hannibal’s money could buy. But gifts only made Will uncomfortable, he’d learned quickly. They had to be presented like this meal: gifts of thought and time, not expense or exclusivity. It didn’t stop him wanting to give more, to overwhelm Will entirely.

“Neither of us is a Christian.”

Will’s face went far away where Hannibal couldn’t follow, before he answered. “We were for a while, when I was little. A bit of the old guilt clings sometimes.”

Perhaps if Hannibal had known Will then, when he was that young and his walls less firmly constructed, he would have been allowed to give him everything.

(He would have had nothing to give, then. They would have passed each other on the street with no spark of recognition. Knowing it did not stop him wanting. Nothing seemed to - the more Will took, the more Hannibal wanted to give him, until he sometimes thought there might be no end to it. No bottom to the ocean, no safe harbor on the far side of yearning.)

Will watched him, sharp and curious, with the slight tilt of his head that Hannibal recognized as his own, mirrored back at him. “My dad gave up drinking for Lent,” he continued, low and steady, luring Hannibal back from his thoughts. “Some years were more successful than others. He gave up on religion altogether when I was seven or eight. I think it was a habit he’d picked up from my mother and then forgot to put down for a while after she left.”

They let that sit between them for a few minutes, until it was clear Will would not continue with that thought. He rarely did: glimpses of his childhood were still rare and precious puzzle pieces that Hannibal collected and studied in quiet moments.

“I’ll make the whipped cream tomorrow,” he said, finally. “To go with the pie.”

Will softened around the edges at that. Just a little, but enough for Hannibal to read it as affection. “Have you ever given up anything in your life? Anything you really wanted?”

Hannibal wasn’t prepared for the immediacy of the memory, still: a flash only, but one burned into his recollection. Will had come right up to the barrier between them. Hannibal had seen his own reflection in the plexiglass, laid over Will’s own face - as if they were one, even then, even after the time lost between them. And Hannibal had thought: _I knew you would come_.  

“Never,” was all he could think to say.

Will glanced at him sidelong and was quiet for a time, turning his attention to the rest of his pie. He reached out with one foot and hooked Hannibal’s ankle with his own as he ate, holding him steady with a single point of contact.

Afterwards they washed the dishes together, and put away the leftovers for the next day, and climbed the stairs. Will did not appear to dream; Hannibal watched his regular, even breaths for a time.

By the next spring it might be safe enough to return to the United States. If Will were amenable, they might visit New Orleans together so that Hannibal could see the spaces Will had inhabited there. It would be easy enough for two people to get lost in the swirl and noise of Mardi Gras.

Will murmured something that was neither English nor French, but some sleep-language of his own, and nestled closer. Hannibal thought again: _where have you gone_ , and _how can I follow_ , and slipped into his own dreams to seek Will there.


End file.
